stuff that's too long for twitter & not really apt for my blog
...a radiologist peering into the interwebs...
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india
ramayana as told by an american teen
a young second generation Indian in the US was asked by his mother to explain the significance of Diwali to his younger brother.
this is his version …
"So, like this dude had, like, a big cool kingdom and people liked him. But, like, his step-mom, or something, was kind of a bitch, and she forced her husband to, like, send this cool-dude, he was Ram, to some national forest or something. Since he was going, for like, something like more than 10 years or so.... he decided to get his wife and his bro along.... you know...so that they could all chill out together. But Dude, the forest was reeeeal scary shit... really man...they had monkeys and devil s and shit like that. But this dude, Ram, kicked with darts and bows and arrows... so it was fine.
i got this from a friend via email. if by chance, you don't know what Ramayana & Diwali are, click the links to view the Wikipedia entries. i strongly recommend that you also read this hilarious post by Krish Ashok - Ramayanapedia.
But then some bad gangsta boys, some jerk called Ravan, picks up his babe (Sita) and lures her away to his hood. And boy, was our man, and also his bro, Laxman, pissed... all the gods were with him... So anyways, you don't mess with gods. So, Ram, and his bro get an army of monkeys...Dude, don't ask me how they trained the damn monkeys... just go along with me, ok...
So, Ram, Lax and their monkeys whip this gangsta's ass in his own hood.... Anyways, by this time, their time's up in the forest... and anyways... it gets kinda boring, you know... no TV or malls or shit like that. So,they decided to hitch a ride back home... and when the people realize that our dude, his bro and the wife are back home... they thought, well, you know, at least they deserve something nice... and they didn't have any bars or clubs in those days... so they couldn't take them out for a drink, so they, like, decided to smoke and stuff ... and since they also had some lamps, they lit the lamps also...so it was pretty cooool... you know with all those fireworks.... Really, they even had some local band play along with the fireworks... and you know, what, dude, that was the very first, no kidding.., that was the very first music-synchronized fireworks.... you know, like the 4th of July stuff, but just, more cooler and stuff, you know. And, so dude, that was how, like, this festival started."
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happy teacher's day
to all teacher's in India.
got a phone call early this morning from an former student of mine. she always calls up on teacher's day and makes my day. thank you sathiya :)Comments [0]
of trees and sacred memories
[inspired by this post by bongi]
this photo was taken in 2005, ten years after we planted a sapling in the then empty lot in front of the fairly new auditorium in our medical college on our graduation day. the little sapling had grown into a young tree of fairly respectable height, now in a pleasant copse. i'm sure it's grown more in height and bulk in these four years. i can't honestly say that i had lofty thoughts like bongi…i lay under the tree and, as best i could, told my friend who was with me about these thought. i then added that i would use the tree as a sort of temporal marker that i could come back to when i was finally what i would be. then i would stand under the tree and remember that exact moment when i looked into the unknown future with innocent hopes and dreams.
…but i do remember thinking about how immature and unprepared for the real world i was on that day when we planted that sapling.
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audition
a conversation on twitter (between saroj & i about this article in the ny times - see the screen grab) reminded me of something that happened years ago when i was in sixth standard, in my first year in boarding school.
one day a whole bunch of us were ordered to gather in the assembly hall after lunch. once there, we were told there was to be an audition to select new members for the school choir. the music teacher sang a short "aaaah" (is that called a chord or a tune?) and asked each of us to try and sing it in the same tune. my turn came in due course. i distinctly remember the dear lady's face twisting in horror within a few seconds of my attempt. she yelled out a tortured, "enough… next!!"that was the end of my budding musical career.Comments [1]
Mother Teresa
What a strange sight she would have presented on the streets of Kolkata in 1948. A European not in a familiar western habit, but in a cheap sari similar to what the municipality sweepresses wore, her feet encased in a pair of rough leather sandals: a nun in her belief but not in appearance.
She was alone. She had no helper, no companion and carried no money to speak of. She stepped into a city in which she had taught long years but of which she knew nothing. She taught herself to beg, the ultimate humiliation for one whose life had not been luxurious but it had been secure. In her only diary, which I was privy to, she wrote of her struggle between her faith and the temptation to return to the security with convent walls.
Between occasional bouts of tears and longing to get back to Loreto, she set up her first school in the very slum she saw each morning outside her classroom. It had no classroom, no table, no chair, no blackboard. She picked up a stick and before a group of curious children who had never seen the inside of a school, she began to write the Bengali alphabet on the ground.
Within a few days, some rickety furniture appeared; someone donated a blackboard and chalk. Lay teachers from the Convent soon volunteered to teach. Her little school in Motijhil became reality. And soon there was a school in Entally. A tiny dispensary followed, stocked with a few basic medicines cajoled from chemists. Bengali-speaking Teresa discovered she could multi-task, and her disarming charm and directness moved people to want to help her.
Her early admirers included the legendary Chief Minister B.C. Roy’s family members. In later years the equally legendary Jyoti Basu lent her his shoulder. Till the end she invariably prefixed the words ‘my friend’, whenever she spoke of the latter. In the years in between, the Calcutta Statesman began to follow her activities. Her name became known outside Kolkata when the Indian government awarded her the Padma Shri at a ceremony where she arrived matter-of-factly in a van and at which she moved many to tears.
As a Hindu, armed only with a certain eclecticism, I found it took me longer than most to understand that Mother Teresa was with Christ in each conscious hour, whether at Mass or with each of those whom she tended. It was not a different Christ on her crucifix and a different one who lay dying at her hospice in Kalighat. Neither existed without the other; they were both one. There could be no contradiction in her oft-repeated words that one must reach out to one’s neighbour. For Mother Teresa, to love one’s neighbour was to love God. This was what was essential to her, not the size of her mission or the power others perceived in her. She explained this to me simply but meaningfully when she said, “We are called upon not to be successful, but to be faithful.” In her life, Mother Teresa exemplified that faith: faith in prayer, in love, in service, and in peace.
the occasions / people that bring out goose pimples in me are rare.
reading about The Mother has never failed.
a true incident related by a noted philanthropist on a recent visit to my hometown. he said he used to be just another rich businessman interested in raising his profits and net worth (already quite high) till the day he met Mother Teresa when some friends in Calcutta had taken him to visit one of her clinics. The Mother told him to contribute generously to charity. Her exact words were, "Give till it hurts. And then give some more."
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india
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clay vinayagar
made by my daughter for the competition held at her school on saturday for vinayagar chathurthi.
many thanks to Mrs. NS who gave her the idea of making a stucco vinayagar on a granite stone, which turned out to be much easier to do, rather than a free-standing (er…sitting) vinayagar. made with modelling clay and Play-Doh, then painted with gold-ish paint (does wonders to the statue, in my opinion). additional decorations with plastic leaves. though the mouse didn't turn out well, i think the plantain leaf with the prasadam is superb. my daughter says one of her classmates overheard the teachers saying she got first place. we await the results. will keep you all posted :)
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